


Visiting night

by Transistance



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Changing Tenses, Gen, Insomnia, Murder, Reapers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 16:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transistance/pseuds/Transistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's late one night during the Ripper case, and William recieves an uninvited and unwanted guest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visiting night

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. It's me.
> 
> a) I'm not really here at the moment. Sorry about that. It's the exam period (5th May - 3rd June) and thus I said to myself "don't have time to write things, any things, including comments and actual stories." Haven't been doing all that well at sticking too this rule, but if I haven't replied to your comments, I'm really sorry and this is why.
> 
> b) Started writing this a while ago. Finished it in celebration for finishing my coursework last wednesday.
> 
> c) Written with female pronouns for Grell because I'm a lazy author. William is not that considerate. Given that it's from his point of view, it should _probably_ use male pronouns for Grell. But then again that's a bit of a dick move anyway so maybe it's fine.

The rain patters against the window like drumming fingers in the night; the wind howls spirals in the storm. Even muted though it is through the walls, curtains, the glass that keeps the room cordoned off from the unnatural weather, it is by far loud enough to keep William awake even had he not been preoccupied enough to find sleep difficult to reach anyway.

Jack the Ripper will kill again tonight.

He knows it – not through any deep intuition, but because he has seen the ledger that contains the victims of the duo of murderers that has already been set up. Angelina Dalles, social high-breed and skilled surgeon, will be the one to wield the knife. Angelina Dalles will be the only name listed under cause of death, in spite of the other's presence. And the other is the problem, because the other is not human.

William has never seen it in the flesh – no reaper has save for Grell, who has been put in charge of overseeing the case and collecting the souls of each victim whilst attempting to discern what the Ripper is – but from the reels knows exactly how well it mimics the visage of a man. A stuttering, stammering, uncertain young aide up until the point where he sees blood, whereupon he becomes easily recognisable as a predator. And he does not kill – he only cuts, cuts and cuts whilst his victim screams and squirms and cries until Dallas commits what by that point is an act of mercy.

It is an ambiguous situation. They have no grounds on which to stop the Ripper, as he has neither stolen souls nor messed with the deaths outwith aiding Dalles - who would murder with or without supernatural help. It is policy not to intervene. But he remains a threat through his obscurity, the lack of reassurance that he will not start breaking regulations in the future. Some of the reapers in the department have been placing bets on whether he will or will not for some time now. Grell has had to be reprimanded twice for stirring up trouble and attempting to convince the higher ups that the Ripper should be brought in sooner rather than later – clearly because she just wanted a fight. Grell is far too enthusiastic about the whole thing.

William is sick of it all. Given his way he would ignore the Ripper until any actual problem occurred – they don't waste time and resources on every roaming demon, so why should they for something that apparently has no vested interest in souls at all? - but his superiors hold that view as out of the question. They fear the unknown, and within that bracket fear the Ripper.

He isn't certain exactly when he realizes that he isn't alone. The figure in the corner of the room is utterly still, head inclined slightly toward him, arms lax at its sides. The darkness enshrouds it, makes it almost insignificant; perhaps it is a trick of the night. Perhaps it is a dream.

William lunges toward the lamp but something else gets there first. Something with wet, gloved hands, and an overwhelming stench of blood.

The light scorches a circle into half of the room, half-blinding William and rendering him powerless to stop the monster that has appeared at his bedside. He tries to move immediately, to get up and away, but the intruder has the advantage and the resulting scuffle is over quickly; the man's weight through one arm on William's chest and a filthy scalpel pressed far too close to his throat.

So he lies back, slowly, and tries to make sense of the scene.

It is a man above him; definitely a man, and definitely inhuman. Not a demon – there is no scent save that of the blood – but nothing obviously identifiable either. Something, indeed, other.

The Ripper is slim, sallow and pale, immense block-green eyes made wider by circular glasses and madder by the gore still wet across his face. His hair is thin and half-loose from a high tail behind him; it is stiff and matted in places, a swathe of it plastered across his skin. His clothes could have been procured from any tailor in London.

But his teeth – his horrifying, nightmarish, pin-prick _teeth_ are more than enough to give any game away. They are fashioned in the same style as Grell's but seem multitudinous in the low light and monstrous given the grotesque stretch of the mouth, stretched far wider than can be anything but a guise. He's motionless now, staring and horribly still; almost feline in the projected intent to strike out at any movement. William can smell the blood on his clothes, his breath, and tries frantically to find a way out of the situation. He cannot jump away; certainly cannot fight from this position. But the Ripper is waiting for something – so he speaks, asking the first thing that comes into his head.

“Who are you?”

“William, William, William,” replies the creature, voice deep and mangled through the contortion of its maw. “Don't you recognise me?”

 _He knows my name,_ William realises, in some dull horror. _He knows that we have been following him._ “No. Not at all.”

“They call me Springheeled Jack, the Ripper, Jack, pleasure to meet you; watch your back.” He grins impossibly wide, tipping his head. “Or half of him at least. But _you_ know _that_.”

“I think I would recall meeting you.” Would the Ripper kill him? William has no idea. As far as the Dispatch knows he has never gone after anyone who wasn't on Red's list – but then again, as far as the Dispatch knows the Ripper had no idea that they have been watching him. And if he wants to harm the investigation – if he wants to strike out at Grell particularly-

The Ripper leans slightly harder on his chest and begins to laugh. No, perhaps not 'laugh' – it is more a giggle, a breathless and high snigger almost ecstatic in apparent humour. But it isn't a loud noise, nor even particularly sinister. Were the man anyone else it would have been merely uncomfortable to listen to rather than convincing its listener that the perpetrator was unhinged. “Yes, yes indeed. I am not easily forgotten. And still your face suggests the sighting of a ghost! Come now, William, I didn't come all the way out here to harm you.”

“...Then why are you here? What-”

“Sh!” The Ripper's eyes widen further as he abruptly whips one finger up to his lips – and the threat of the scalpel is gone as quickly as it arrived. “Hush, William, William... I am going to tell you a story. Nay, not a story – a _confession_. Do you want to hear? Do you want to know?”

There's nothing to do save agree, but he's buying time now. Reapers can move quickly, and without the immanency of having his throat slit William finds that, if he can be subtle, the odds may yet stack in his favour. If the Ripper notices this change in demeanour he gives no sign of it; he simply begins to talk, becoming suddenly far more comprehensible than he was moments before. His hand remains on William's chest, but the weight half lifts, grip becoming lax as the monster speaks – yet his eyes remain as sharp as before, fixed on his quarry's face.

“Once upon a time there was a woman – let's call her Red, shall we? For convenience? - a very beautiful woman, a very... high profile woman. And people lauded her and laughed with her and loved her - yes, loved even her! - but she wasn't... right. Do you know why, William? Do you know what was wrong with her?”

William plays along, calculating angles and probabilities as he speaks. “She lost her child in a road accident, and was left barren.” The answer is easy – every reaper who with any knowledge of the Ripper case knows what had happened to the Madam Red. 

“An accident, a damning from the gods; call it what you will! But either way, either dark and damned way, when people knew this of her – even those who had lauded her, laughed with, _loved_ her – when people found out, the whisperings and the rumours and the filth began to grow from cracks in the masks of those around her. A sterile creature such as her has no place in the courts of men, no place in polite society – they wanted her to fade. Even though she was so bright, so very good at what she did – one of the only women in her occupation! - she had forfeited her right to a place amongst her peers. Not for being a woman, not anymore; but for being half a woman, some pale shell dressed up bright as though she had something to offer. She was a scarlet woman fallen further than the harlots on the streets, by virtue of no more than her fertility. Because that's what's at the heart of womanhood, my dear man, I'm sure you understand; any creature can be forgiven for straying once, twice, twice again so long as she can bear child to a gentleman's name. Her looks matter not. Eccentricities? Nothing. It is what is inside her – _potential_ , William, to grow into something beautiful – that matters the world. And that was stolen from her by no fault of her own, and only she, now, can see the vile injustice of it all. Trollops, harlots, prostitutes, _whores_ \- is it fair that they are more women than she? Is it fair that they kill, kill and kill and kill that spark of life within them for convenience, and fear no punishment? Their deaths are justified, William. Red is only acting the hand of justice, the only true force in the universe worth upholding.” His breaths have become heavy, voice excited – the hand against William has clenched into a tight fist – and his distraction is enough that when William summons his scythe, his own hands hidden under the security of the duvet, there is no change. Now he must only wait for the correct moment to strike; again he feigns interest in what the man has to say. The question that he asks is the only one that needs an answer, anyhow.

“But where do you fit in? 

“Perhaps I merely enjoy the chaos of it all.” The Ripper shrugs, seeing to come back to the present quite suddenly before tipping his head to smile at William in a manner that is disquietingly fond. “There is another, deeper reason, of course, but I don't think you'd understand. And... I hate to ask, but I really cannot tell – is that a scythe you're pulling up under there, or are you enjoying this _far_ more than you should be?”

William raises his scythe sharply, attempts to stab it into the creature's neck – but the Ripper leaps back, laughing. “And he strikes! But too late; the encounter is over, and the opportunity to learn is lost to the night. And the antagonist... is... _gone_.”

And so he is. He fades into the shadowed corner of the room, seeming to dissipate into the air as easily as he had arrived, as easily as a reaper jumps from one plane to the next. For a time William remains standing, on edge and confused even after every light in the room is lit and even after he has checked the entire house _just in case_ and knows that he is alone. Eventually he does manage to settle enough to return to bed if not enough to put out the lights, and once down he begins to consider the way that the Ripper had moved, how much the Ripper had known, and how those block green eyes had brightened and shone, just for a moment, when he had become impassioned.

William does not sleep that night.

* * *

The morning, when it came, was muggy and overcast. Several coffees and a shower did help a little, but William could still see the circles under his eyes in the mirror before he left the house; still feel the stiffness in his limbs and faint fuzziness in his head. Not for the first time in recent years he found himself acutely glad of the prospect of never having to do fieldwork again.

The Dispatch was quiet for the first hour or so, as people trickled in in apparently as subdued a state as he was and mercifully didn't bother him. One or two juniors stuck their heads around his door to query their schedules or hand in overdue papers, and that was fine. Everything was normal. Everything was as it should be. He had almost convinced himself that nothing was amiss whatsoever – that the apparition in the night had merely been a figment of his imagination, some fleeting worry brought to life through lucid dreaming – when Grell arrived (late, but that went without saying) to give her report of the otherworldly activities that had occurred whilst they should both have been asleep.

She swept in without knocking as per usual, cradling an unappealing high stack of paperwork in her arms and wearing a faint smile on her face and well-placed make-up that _almost_ successfully hid the fatigue in her own face. 

“You don't look as though you've slept.”

It was neither a greeting nor polite, but Grell grinned anyway as she dumped the papers on his desk with no regard for his neatness or filing system. “Oh, how kind of you to notice! Neither do you, although I was going to be polite and avoid mentioning it. The Ripper killed again last night – I had to be up and out at God-knows-what hour of this morning to collect the soul. What's your excuse?”

“The storm kept me awake.” He had no intention of telling Grell what had happened in the night – she would doubtless decide that if strange men had begun infiltrating his bedroom then he clearly needed protection of some sort, and if that protection just happened to be a chainsaw-wielding madwoman sharing his bed then that would be the price he would have to pay, whether he wanted to or not. “What do you have to report on the Ripper's activities?”

Grell rolled her eyes at him, presumably for the lack of small talk, but didn't call him out on it. “After they killed, he ported Dalles back to her manor as he always does, but didn't stay; he up and left her not five minutes after they returned. Didn't even bother to wash the blood off himself, so I assume he headed back to wherever he's holed up when not with A- Dalles, to rest or recuperate or whatever he does when not socialising or slicing up whores. I still haven't found out where that is; he's got no aura, no way of tracing him, but I still don't think it's mortal London.”

“Any idea as to when he will return?”

“The next murder in the book is in three day's time, but he does sometimes accompany her around in her day-to-day life. If you want me to tail her and wait for him, I can-”

“No.” She had been skiving off work far too often under the pretence of trying to hunt down the Ripper, catch him alone – and although William knew that this was exactly what she did do whilst out there, she had never returned with information of any real use. “You have paperwork to catch up with. I want it finished before tomorrow.”

“Oh, _boo_.” Grell stuck her tongue out at him, laughing a little again. “You're no fun at all, Will! The most exciting roving unknown creature for years and you want me stuck behind a desk. Still, I suppose it'll do me good to get some rest, slow down a little, consider the case from in here without anything but you to distract me.” She seemed in unusually high spirits, William thought – but then again she did enjoy reapings, and seemed to be getting excessive pleasure from the case as a whole. He had the low, nasty feeling that something - whether it was their dramatic nature, the viciousness of the murders or simply the amount of blood that wound up spilt – about the duo of killers drew her interest more than the more mundane, everyday reaps did.

“...Grell-”

She cut him off, over-eager to help. “Yes, my darling?”

“Do you think there's any chance that the Ripper is a reaper?”

There was a moment of silence - Grell had gone still, painted surprise hiding whatever emotion she clearly didn't want to express as all animation drew out of her. “A reaper?” she echoed and frowned, delicately. The shock in her voice was justifiable; if a reaper were to get mixed up in mortal affairs of this scale it _would_ be considered influencing the death lists, and the reaper in question would be suspended at best. “Because of how quickly he gets around? I suppose it's possible... But would he not take the soul, then, instead of leaving it for us to examine? Hide the evidence?”

“If he didn't want us to know what he was, then – no, I'd say he wouldn't.”

The frown deepened. “A bluff, you think? He'd have to have guile - _and_ skill, to be able to mask himself so well. Why, he'd have to be almost as good at changing as me!” She laughed loudly, as though the suggestion was absurd. “What was it that brought you to this conclusion?”

“Nothing. It was just... a thought.”

“Just a thought?” she repeated again, and peered at him. “Did something happen last night, Will? I didn't think you cared about this case at all.”

“It was just on my mind.” Had she been anyone else he would not have lied. That the Ripper knew he was under observation, and perhaps more importantly knew how to access the reaper realm, would be very important to know – and yet for all that Grell claimed to love him he did not trust her to take his word for it. 

“Have you told this... thought to anybody else? If there's truth in it, and he hears that we suspect...”

William snorted. “I'm neither an idiot nor an idle gossip, Grell. You're in charge of this case – my thoughts on it are irrelevant to anyone else.”

She smiled widely again, apparent happiness breaking through what had almost been professionalism. “Good,” she said with feeling. “That makes my job far easier. I'll look into it – he's closer to a reaper than anything else that I can think of, certainly – but I really don't think there's any stock in it. Someone would have to ensure that they never had reaps when... Unless the murders are scheduled around reaps, if...” Grell trailed off, frowning now. “Right. Yes, Will, I'll look into it.”

Her eyes met his for a moment and he found some turmoil in their depths, some desire to either say or conceal something – but perhaps he was misreading her. Perhaps his sleep deprivation was affecting his judgement, or she was merely as perturbed by the suggestion that one of their own could do this as he was. Either way she turned her back to him and made for the door, steps brisk and more purposeful than he had seen from her in some time.

“Grell?”

The call stopped her short at the door, and she turned and raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Do you think he's mad?”

An odd mix of emotions crossed her face, none of which he recognised, and after considering the question Grell said, “...No. I'm sure he has what seems to him a motive. Whether it's something that someone like you or I could understand, I couldn't tell you.” She made to turn again, and stopped again at his call.

“Grell?”

“Y _es_?”

“Don't do anything rash.”

“Of course I won't, my love.” She closed her eyes and blew him a kiss, grinning as she did so, and slipped out of the door, leaving William at ease.

Because, fool that he was, he trusted her to bring the culprit to justice.


End file.
